željko Karaula UDC 929 Franić Požežanin Zagreb Preliminary communication Croatia Received: November 30, 2009 [email protected] Accepted: December 4, 2009 Letter by Ivo Franić Požežanin, Director of the Ethnographic Museum in Zagreb, to the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Milan Stojadinović in 1937 This paper gives a brief overview of political actions of Ivo Franić Požežanin, director of the Ethnographic Museum in Zagreb (1935-1939), mainly based on the letter that Ivo Franić Požežanin sent to the president of the Yugoslav government Milan Stojadinović. The letter was written near the end of 1937. In it Ivo Franić Požežanin presents his view of the political situation in Zagreb, Croatia, and as a supporter and member of the Yugoslav Radical Community (JRZ) suggests some moves to Stojadinović. From the letter it is evident that Ivo Franić Požežanin is a strong opponent of the HSS and the Croatian national movement, and suggests that the Croatian issue be resolved as a “’ Egg of Columbus “. Keywords: Franić Požežanin, Ivo, Croatian history, year 1937, Ethno- graphic museum After the death of the Yugoslav King Alexander, who was assassinated at Marseilles in October 9, 1934, the authorities in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, on behalf of his heir Peter II, a minor, set up a Regency, which consisted of the ban of Sava Banovina Ivo Perović, Senator Dr Radenko Stanković and Prince Paul of Yugoslavia, a cousin of the murdered king, who began to carry the decisive word. A gradual democratization of public life started to develop under the Regency in Yugoslavia, after the dark years of the 6th of January dictatorship. Political life in Yugoslavia was again revived during the election of 1935 (Matković 1998: 185). It was in the preparations of the government of Bogoljub Jeftić for the fifth parliamentary elections in May of 1935 that the name of Ivo Franić Požežanin came up, as a trusted confidant of the government. According to Pletenac “Jeftić government was preparing for the vote where the goal was to elim- inate the opposition and show to the world’s public opinion an illusion of democracy for which a favorable climate in all public areas was to be created and therefore a se- ries of sackings in the Croatian cultural institutions offices followed” (Pletenac, 2000 237 Etnološka istraživanja 15/Ethnological Researches 15 Željko Karaula: Letter by Ivo Franić Požežanin, Director of the Ethnographic Museum in Zagreb, to the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Milan Stojadinović in 1937 5). Ivo Franić Požežanin1 was among the new government staff, and was placed at the head of the Ethnographic Museum in Zagreb, by way of temporary suspending Act under which every museum official should have had at least three years of working experience in the profession and the a state license exam in order to become a direc- tor, because Ivo Franić Požežanin didn’t have such qualifications (Pletenac, 2000: 27). There is no doubt that Ivo Franić Požežanin, as the new director of the Ethnographic Museum, being a “Yugoslav ethnologist” sought unification of Croatian and Serbian ethnology in accordance with the ideas of the Yugoslav Unitarianism on the creation of a Yugoslav nation a leading ethnologist Croatia Milovan Gavazzi2 often warned of the political background and aims of Ivo Franić Požežanin’s appointment at the head of an important cultural institution in Croatia. In his numerous professional debates with Franić-Požežanin Gavazzi pointed out with some political invective “Ah, what an ethnography. Just to touch it (...) Who and what is the patron of (such ethnology) “(Pletenac, 1995/1996: 81-93). Gavazzi had hinted, and Pletenac clearly stated: “Patronage is an integral ideology of the Yugoslav government in Belgrade and the prime minister Jeftić has a client in Franić who will write ethnography according to his personal pref- erences, with the political insistence on the creation of a Yugoslav people.” (Pletenac, 1 Ivo Franić Požežanin (1886-1945), writer and ethnologist. Graduated from high school in Požega. Eth- nology classes attended on the Faculty of Philosophy from 1930 to 1934. He was an official in companies in Požega and Osijek from 1908 to 1914. During World War I he was a lieutenant in the Austrian Army then worked in Zagreb in the Main Directorate of State Railways from 1919 to 1932, edited a weekly magazine Trader (1919 to 1921), Theater review (1920-21), and in 1923 published the bulletin of the National Radical Party Odjek where he promoted monarchist centralism in his articles, and attacked Stjepan Radić and HRSS because of their federalist efforts. From 1935 to 1939 he was the director of the Ethnographic Museum in Zagreb and editor of the Journal of the Ethnographic Museum. He wrote poems, cartoons, short stories, theatrical debates, ethnological and archaeological articles, articles on trade and social security. He pub- lished books The Arts and Crafts and Meja i Praputnjak with professional aspirations. The first is an all-en- compassing treatise on various forms of art and applied art without system and methodology, and the oth- er is an ethnographic study of the Sušak part of the Croatian coast and the material and spiritual culture of people of the area. A series of articles about the old Zagreb Cathedral he published in the magazine Za- greb (1934-1935) He published books of poems Monuments of youth, The struggle of life and Longings and im- aginings. He wrote the autobiographical story Dream of an author. The novel The Death Watch describes the battles of Krsto Frankopan against the Turks and Ferdinand Habsburg in the civil war that broke out after the Mohács battle. He has published in periodicals Luč, People, Brother, Croatian worker, Slavonian, Ethnolo- gist, the Croatian People. Often he used a pseudonym: Anef, Argus, Nicif, Pif, Ivanić Fran, Veritas and oth- ers. Croatian Biographical Lexicon, 1998 4 E-Gm. Zagreb: Lexicographic Institute, pg. 379 2 Milovan Gavazzi (1895-1992) is one of the most important Croatian ethnologists of the 20th century. He studied Slavic languages, Germanistics and Philosophy in Zagreb and Prague. He was the founder of the Ethnological scientific work and teaching of ethnology at the Faculty of Philosophy at the Depart- ment of Ethnology. Between 1923-1927 he worked as a curator at the Ethnographic Museum in Zagreb. Since 1927 professor at the Department of Ethnology until his retirement in 1965. He was teaching for almost two decades after his retirement. He dealt with the history of ethnology, old Slavic ethnograph- ic heritage of the Croatian traditional culture and other Slavic peoples, and other European nations as well as non-European cultures. In addition, he studied folk music, musical instruments and dancing. In addition to teaching and scientific work has initiated work on publishing and film industry and started the ethnological cartography. The winner of the Herder Prize in 1970. Author of numerous studies and articles and books among which we recommend Year of Croatian folk customs (1939), Sources and the fate of folk traditions (1978), Heritage of Croatian village (1991) Http://www.hrvatskoetnoloskodrustvo. hr/hed/nagrada_milovan_gavazzi / 31 238 Željko Karaula: Letter by Ivo Franić Požežanin, Director of the Ethnographic Museum in Zagreb, to the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Milan Stojadinović in 1937 1995/1996: 28). From 1935 to 1939 Gavazzi was involved in a confrontation with Ivo Franić Požežanin. The story came to a conclusion after the epilogue to a four-year debate, with the establishment of a Croatian Banovina in 1939, when Franić was re- moved from office, and Milovan Gavazzi took his place as acting director. The political situation in Croatia (Sava Banovina) and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in late 1937 and the events that preceded it can be learned from the letter, which was sent at that time by Ivo Franić Požežanin to the president of the Yugoslav government Milan Stojadinović. From the election on May 5, 1935 to the establishment of Croa- tian Banovina there was a specific situation in the Sava and Littoral Banovina com- pared to other parts of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Complex political relations were more pronounced in the increasing conflict of the rising Croatian national movement under the leadership of the Croatian Peasant Party (HSS) and Vlatko Maček with the backers of the ideology of Yugoslav nationalism (Yugoslavian nationalist organizations) and members of the ruling Yugoslav Radical Union3 (JRZ) (Regan, 2007: 218 ). After loosening the repression and having smoother relations with the Croatian authori- ties (under the partial influence of Prince Paul, who was aware of the necessity of an agreement with HSS and V. Maček) the HSS, starting in 1935, began with the estab- lishment of its parallel “government institutions” that were supposed to protect Croa- tian interests. In order to protect the Croatian people from the persecution of regime the HSS founded the Croatian Peasants’ Protection in the villages and Croatian Civil Protection in the cities in 1935. The “Economic Concord” was also important, creat- ing an economic system that was helping the Croatian peasantry in the struggle with everyday economic problems. HSS was working to reactivate the cultural organiza- tion of Peasant Concord, “and the Croatian Peasant Party’s trade union The Feder- ation of Croatian workers.” In mid-1935 HSS began publishing a daily newspaper ti- tled “The Croatian Daily”. By the end of 1935 there was a large number of political actions by the members of the HSS, and the Yugoslav nationalists, mainly officials of the ruling regime, felt that they were slowly losing ground. In order to improve the situation, the JRZ announced the municipal elections in the fall of the 1936, trying to get the administrative, and then also political power in the Sava and Littoral Banovina.